As days of protest against austerity draw hundreds, security forces show an iron fist. The crisis highlights the country’s weak political institutions. Some fear criminal and jihadist infiltrations. The political class must be renewed and economic and social reforms must be implemented.
US Senate votes against arms support to the Saudis in Yemen
| SAUDI ARABIA - UNITED STATESPrayers, meetings and confessions are scheduled for Advent. The Bahrain cathedral is essential to meet the needs of Catholics in Saudi Arabia as well. Social and confessional relations are developing slowly. Pope Francis's visit is a source of "encouragement" for the region’s Christians despite some issues.
Francis will travel to Bulgaria and visit the Macedonian capital of Skopje.
"The lessons" learned from the two great world can "continue to convince the world’s people and their leaders of the futility of armed conflict and the need to resolve conflicts through patient dialogue and negotiation. ". No effective humanitarian solution to the mass migration crisis "can ignore our moral responsibility" to "welcome, protect, promote and integrate".
Vahid Sayadi Nasiri was jailed on charges of insulting supreme leader Ali Khameni and propaganda against the state. He had already spent two and a half years in prison and had been the subject of abuse and harassment. He had not eaten for 60 days to protest against the lack of legal protection and against the prison regime.
The paintings by the Swiss painter Mauro Valsangiacomo are on display. The Mediterranean, also with the drama of the refugees, is "an expanse of water from which" unfinished "forms emerge," the possibilities of a still unknown but positive future, full of hope ". The new monastery of the Trappist sisters will give work to the women left alone and hope for the young, helping Christians to remain in this land.
On the day dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe, Francis spoke about authentic prominence; not the kind that is full of the arrogance or humiliation for others, but the one that doesn’t fear tenderness and hugs, to restore dignity of those who have has fallen.
More than four million visitors are expected in Israel in 2018, 14 per cent more than the previous year. Bethlehem has 95 per cent hotel occupancy. For Sobhy Makhou, such "unexpected" levels are due to visitors from China, South Korea and India. But more infrastructure and new rules for access to holy places are needed.
It is a "audacious" prayer, which contains seven questions to God. "None of us is required to embrace the theory that someone in the past has advanced, that is, prayer of supplication is a weak form of faith, whereas the most authentic prayer is of pure praise, that seeks God without the weight of any request ".
Sister Marie Melhem, 81, participated in person at the beatification ceremony of Msgr. Pierre Claverie. The bishop of Oran was a frequent visitor to the Land of the Cedars. The meeting with the religious and the Lebanese model of Islamic-Christian coexistence. The pain for involvement of Christians in the slaughter of Sabra and Chatila.
